Cody Winger
Accomplishments:
- Salt Lake City Grand Slam champ 2009
- Competed in the 2009 National Poetry Slam
- Performed on group piece final stage at the 2009 NPS
- 3 first place wins in monthly local poetry slams from August 2008-April 2009
- Invited to and participated in two radio shows
- Hosted several open mics throughout the city and currently hosting Salt Lake City’s certified slam venue Baxter’s Coffee.
- Member of Salt City Indie Arts committee
- Taught East High School performance poetry workshop for creative writing class
Involvement:
Cody first became involved in the Salt Lake City performance/slam poetry scene in late June of 2008. From there he was immediately engulfed in everything he could get his hands on, performing and participating in art festivals, regional and local poetry slams, open mics, high school poetry workshops, concerts, and features.
Through constant participation in slams and open mics, winning three of the local monthly slams, in April 2009 he won a spot to compete in the Salt Lake City Grand Slam, where he took 1st place, winning a place on the 2009 Salt City Slam team, as well as becoming the IWPS representative for Salt Lake City. However due to the route of his tour this year, as well as financial issues, he willingly surrendered that position to a different poet in Salt Lake with the proper means of attending.
During the time period of April-August 2009, Cody became very heavily involved with the community, helping to expand and enrich the performance poetry scene in Salt Lake City, doing so mostly by promoting local art, work shopping poets, and hosting the open mics and poetry slams at SLC’s certified slam venue, as well as helping with hosting and promotion at other venues as well. He has been invited, and participated, in two local radio shows, one with the Salt City Slam team, one individually.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/search/salt-lake-city/
(Finding your genius with Megan Sillito)
In August 2009, he went with the Salt City Slam team to West Palm Beach, Florida, to compete at the National Poetry Slam. There, he and his team made it on to the group piece final stage, where he performed in a five person group piece called Sound and Fury.
He is still heavily involved in the community, still participating in open mics and slams, and still working on expanding the scene, as well as others and himself.
Cody was born and raised in Utah, however growing up in a city south of Salt Lake called West Jordan (an oppressive, predominantly religious community), he moved to downtown Salt Lake City to get involved in the performance/slam poetry scene.
His first introduction to performance poetry was through Sage Francis and then Buddy Wakefield. However, some of his other great influences include: Shae Sveniker, DeAnn Emmett, Pablo Neruda, Seth Walker, Bob Kaufman, Harold Norse, Counting Crows, Modest Mouse, Aesop Rock, and his close friends and family.
His style stems a lot from the styles and influences of the local scene, as well as being very centered around language, due to the poetry he reads. He strives to be as well heard on stage as he is read on paper, however, carries and intensely expressive presence when performing. Performing poetry is very therapeutic for him, in that taking a piece of art that is very close to him and performing it, while assessing the interest of the audience, he exhibit’s a display of raw emotion, humor, sorrow, and joy that are in tune with the listeners however entirely expressive and heartfelt to him.
It is through this passion and love for what he does that has got him to where he is today. He has a large fan base in Salt Lake City who tend to gravitate around his ability to simply express himself and become vulnerable and enveloped in his poetry. He is very dedicated to the art, as well as other artists and community, and loves to share and listen. He is also a very social person, and often goes out of his way to meet new people and experience new ideas and cultures, on small or large scales.
